Part 2: Welcome to Hell (aka Mars)
by FCSalem
Summary: Welcome to Hell, but who is this hell for?
1. Chapter 1: The Request

**Chapter 1: A request**

21 October 2753

1832 hours

There was a chill in the air and the scent of a coming storm. Some of the streets were quiet with nobody around, while others were bustling with activity and full of people, but I stuck to the shadows and deserted streets when I could. I wasn't exactly a people person and I had a destination. There was a certain bar frequented by hunters and the occasional warlock deep in the recesses of the city. Cayde had asked me to meet Ikora and him there at 1845.

He'd said they had a job for me which only I could do. I knew that it was bullshit, there were plenty of people who were better qualified than I was for all types of missions. So, whatever it was, I knew they were just about scraping the bottom of the barrel if they were picking me. I could tell that Zara agreed with me, even though she wasn't talking. She was neatly hidden in the collar of my jacket and would occasionally shift in a direction telling me which way to go to avoid large groups of people.

When we got there, surprising neither of us at all, they weren't there, and it was 1843. So we went to a booth in the corner that had more or less become mine when I was there. It let me keep an eye on the door and most of the room if I shifted correctly. The bartender already knew what I wanted and brought it over. Nobody knew what the label said since it'd long since faded away, but it was damn good.

They didn't get there until around 1650 which made me think that it was a prank and that they weren't actually coming. But they got there eventually. When they sat down, Sundance and Ikora's ghost appeared. I could never remember its name, nor if it'd ever spoken when I was around. They just watched me for a few minutes as I waited for them to get on with it.

They were the ones who called me in from my hunt out in what used to be the alps. I'd been following a group of Fallen and had just about been in the perfect position to kill their leader when Cayde called and ruined my shot which let them get away. Luckily, they'd run into some traps that I'd set the day before and I was able to catch back up and end them. So there was no way in hell that I was going to talk first.

Cayde was the first one to speak up "You know why we called you here buddy?" "Cayde, if I knew that, I wouldn't have come here and would probably still be out in the wilderness currently. I'm here so that I can find out what you two wanted." Ikora slid a folder across the table to me and waited for my reaction. It took me a few minutes to read through and assess the merits of the mission.

"So you want me to covertly trail a fireteam and provide them with long range sniper support. In addition to hunting down a cabal leader that you're sure they'll attract the attention of?" Ikora finally spoke up "Precisely. We want to run you through a quick test and get you a suitable sniper rifle though to make sure you're up to the challenge. Cayde says that it's not necessary, but I have to do this anyway." "You haven't told her what I was out doing have you?" "I think we can tell her after you go through the test. Don't worry, its short." I could feel Zara waiting for me to make a choice. "one more question, what do I get out of it?" Ikora answered "You get to keep the rifle, along with anything you find, and you get a substantial reward." "Define substantial." "200000 Glimmer." Both Zara and I let out a low whistle at that. That was about double what we'd made in the 3 months we'd been working. Before we could respond, Cayde cut in. "And as promised for doing that little job, here you are." He slid a small box across the table to me. Inside was a cloak, several knives, and a deck of cards along with around 20000 glimmer. "You've definitely earned that." "Thank you." Ikora butted in again as I stood up. "I need your answer now." I turned and walked towards the door. "Then let's go, I don't have all day by the looks of it." I could hear Cayde laughing as I walked out. "And that Ikora, is how he says he'll do it.


	2. Chapter 2: Preparations

**Chapter 2: Preparations**

21 October 2753

1920 hours

It took far less time to get back to the tower than it took to get to the bar in the first place. For one, people had gone home or otherwise inside due to the chill and for another, it was finally getting dark which meant that I had much more freedom with movement and the route I took. Compared to earlier at least. Couple in that I was happy to finally be recognized as a hunter and I was moving even faster than I usually would.

It only took me 10 minutes or so to reach the base of the tower and take an elevator to the level my home was on. Every guardian had a home in the tower, usually no more than 3 rooms. But Cayde had really hooked me up after he'd first seen me, quietly moving me from a room on a lower floor that had a bedroom, bathroom, and sitting room. To a room several floors higher which had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room, kitchen, and a walk in closed that I'd quickly converted into a miniature armory of sorts which held among other things, an AAR-3, an AM97 APR, and an ASG227. All of them were designed and produced by Ardent Armories.

I'd found them in the Armory aboard Alaska and had spent more than a little time tinkering with them, especially the AAR-3. Alaska had claimed that it was highly modular and holy shit was she right. I would never need another rifle with it. But I wasn't very focused on that. I would need a sniper rifle for this test, but Zara knew that I'd take them with me anyway and transmatted them. I grabbed the AM97 and quickly field stripped it, making sure that it was perfect in every regard. There wasn't much to change, but I put on a scope that went up to 70x zoom along with a Bipod and Suppressor/muzzle brake combo.

By far what took me the longest was getting the cloak on correctly. I'd told Cayde I liked challenges, so he got me a very challenging cloak to put on. But it was worth it. It was black with a dark red trim and reached nearly down to my ankles. I'd have to remind myself to get it set for cold weather ops by lining it with something. I'd figure it out later. Otherwise my armor was a more or less standard set that I'd made some modifications to and really only wore when I was around people. I had a set that I kept aboard Alaska which was much nicer and which I now had an alibi for having.

It took me a minute to notice that there were 1. Far more knives in the box than I'd originally noticed, and 2. That there were small loops in the cloak that obviously were supposed to hold them. Zara floated in and asked, "What rounds are we bringing?" "What can you tell me about the Cabal?" "Ruthless, tough, well armored. I can give more info on the way, but that's all we really need to know to pick rounds." "In that case, lets go with Semi and Full Armor Piercing. More of the former, less of the latter." "Shotgun rounds? There are some reports in the files that shotguns tend to be good against them." "ummmm, lets go with the Doomsday rounds." We both started laughing. The doomsday rounds were pretty powerful on their own, but when paired with a full auto shotgun and in a 30-round drum magazine, they were absolutely lethal. They were actually called HESH rounds. They worked the same as the tank version but were much smaller. The round would hit the target, the head squashed against them, and them exploded. It blew fragments of whatever it exploded against into the target in addition to the shockwave caused by it.

The AM97 by contrast was simple. The only difference from a regular sniper in common use, was the size of the round. It fired a 12.7x105mm round that blew away anything it hit. We had explosive, SAP, and AP rounds for that. I kept these weapons out of sight, and while I may be able to use this mission as an alibi for the armor, there was no way I'd really be able to do that for these magnificent weapons.

Once I had all my stuff and the rest was transmatted out of sight, we went back down the corridor and onto the elevator. The testing area this week was outside of the walls in an area that was free of fallen and hive. Someone had accidentally blown up the regular testing area a few weeks prior when they were testing an explosive and it went wrong. It was being repaired, but it wouldn't be done for nearly another month. Cayde was waiting for me when the lift stopped in the hangar and practically dragged me to his ship, laughing about how surprised Ikora was going to be when she saw this.

The only person who knew about my regular weapons was of course, Cayde. He'd seen them when we'd gone for a patrol a month ago and knew better than to ask where they came from or talk about them in general. So he knew that while I was going to take the sniper that Ikora had for me, unless it was really exceptional, I wouldn't use it.


	3. Chapter 3: The Test

**Chapter 3: The Test**

It took us longer than it should've to get to the testing area, which meant that we weren't going to the normal one. Zara and I just looked at each other and then she vanished. I could feel a sidearm transmat into the holster on my hip as Cayde pulled a tight turn and landed in between a pair of hills. He stood up and walked out, motioning for me to follow him. Ikora was waiting for us along with several other people which I recognized as members of the hidden.

Zara and I had covertly broken into the vanguard servers one day because we were bored and had spent the next week searching through personnel files, after action reports, secret projects, etc. We even called Cayde over and questioned him at length about it, but all the ones I'd taken an interest in had taken place before he became vanguard. But I'd piqued his interest, so he helped me with some more digging and "borrowing" Ikora's access code. Turns out that Zavala was the only vanguard who was around at this time. Our relations in the first place were icy to say the least. So that didn't help.

"So what exactly am I doing?" One of the agents, I couldn't remember their name off the top of my head, held out a sniper rifle. It looked fairly normal, not like one meant for shooting at the ranges they'd been talking about. "I want you to shoot the farthest target you can hit. 10 rounds, your pacing." I could hear Zara break down laughing in my mind, and I started laughing too. They looked at me like I was crazy. I grabbed the rifle and looked it over. It was much lighter than it should've been and wasn't properly balanced.

"What range is the farthest target at?" "There's a water jug at 5000 meters." I looked at Cayde and we both started to crack up. They again, looked at us like we were crazy. I looked at Cayde and said "fuck it. But I won't use this piece of crap." I tossed the rifle to Cayde. "Field strip it while I do this, I suspect there are some parts missing from it." I could see one of the agents seething. "Zara, bring it out." "Already working on it." "Send them away Ikora." She just stared at me for what felt like ages before turning and telling them to scram. They protested for several minutes before giving up and transmatting away. Once they were gone, the AM97 appeared in my arms along with a pair of magazines. According to the tape on them, one was SAP, the other was HE. "Read my mind Zara, thanks." "All part of the job." Ikora's jaw literally dropped when she saw the rifle. I quickly laid down and got into my firing position. There was a satisfying click as I chambered the first round. It didn't take me long to find the target. "Target spotted. Firing in 5." There was a muted crack when I fired, and the water jug exploded. "Target down. Shifting to next target." I'd seen a head appear a few hundred feet from the water jug before I fired and after firing, it had appeared again after, just looking at where the water jug used to be. I swapped magazines and fired again. The head exploded. "Satisfied with my credentials now Ikora?" Cayde, for his part was cracking up. "Go ahead and tell her what I was doing in the alps when you called."

He looked Ikora in the eyes and waited till he could see that she was really listening before he started to speak. "I sent him to eliminate that group of Kings who were running around the alps and giving us trouble. He killed them all." "I thought you sent one of the more experienced hunters to do that?" "I did. I sent Salem, and he preformed better than anyone we'd sent against that group." I saw the person's head pop up again and immediately shot it. This went on for several minutes until I ran out of rounds in the magazine and transmatted the rifle away.

I looked at the rifle Cayde had pulled apart, then looked at Ikora. "I hope you know I'm going to punch whoever decided on this rifle in the face at a random time." She just nodded and walked off to where her ship was parked and quickly left.

"So how long will this mission take?" "Should be 3 days, assuming they don't screw up too badly, which is always a possibility." "When am I leaving?" "Tomorrow morning." "Do they have a specific route they're following?" "Yeah, but-" I cut him off before he could continue. "Let's go back to my place and you can show me there." He nodded and we walked off back towards his ship.

We spent the next few hours talking and mapping out a route that would keep me above and in range of the fireteam. Along with lots, and lots of drinking. For whatever reason, I wasn't able to get drunk despite much trying.


	4. Chapter 4: Outpost

**Chapter 4: Outpost**

"Zara? Why did we accept this again?" we'd spent the last day and a half walking through the Martian wasteland, just watching from a distance. It was really fucking boring. They hadn't needed any help from us yet, and I was beginning to doubt they'd need it at all. "Because money." "Oh… Yeah." We were silent for another mile or two before I spoke up. "You want to go do something more fun?" "You know, I'm pretty sure I know what you mean, but tell me anyway." "How far is the nearest Cabal outpost?" "Yeah, that's what I figured. About 10 miles to the west." "Keep monitoring their channels, if they need help then we'll at least know." And so, we transmatted a lighter weapon into hand and began a long jog towards an outpost.

It was quiet, the only thing I could hear from my perch was the wind blowing through the desert. No animals, no movement outside of a small Cabal patrol moving around the outpost. Just as I was about to move closer, there was a flash of light a few hundred feet from the outpost and a sound that I had yet to hear myself, but had heard all about from others. The Vex had arrived.

We sat around watching them duke it out with the cabal for the next 2 hours. Each side progressively called in more and more reinforcements as they were needed. It was actually very amusing. They went back and forth and back and forth until several Minotaur's teleported in and were slowly annihilated by a pair of Colossus's. For whatever reason death held a strange allure for me, so much so that I could tell Zara was a bit concerned. But for whatever reason, she never brought it up. Though it was my turn to have some fun now.

It didn't take me long to move into a good position and start counting targets. Most of the reinforcements that had come were either dead or had left, but the Colossus's were still there, so they were a priority target that I should kill first. But I didn't want too, I wanted to kill them up close and personal. Tough call, but I decided on the latter. I really wanted to try out my shotgun. I hadn't really had much of a chance to use it yet. All of my missions thus far had been stalking and eliminating enemies from the shadows.

I waited until the two of them went inside the outpost then started taking down the farthest patrols with fire which for me, was a muted crack, and for them, was nothing more than death. I took my time with this part, killing every patrol, and then taking careful aim at the communications array. Two shots was all it took to disconnect them from the grid. They wouldn't be calling for more help, and by the time anyone knew something was wrong, I'd be long gone.

"What music are we gonna listen too while we clear this Z?" "Mmmmm, no clue. Any suggestions?" "Something… fast should do." "Eh, best I can think of right now is Bring on the Thunder." "Good enough." I wasn't in a rush, so I walked to the outpost, switching weapons as I went. In my eyes, I had all the time in the world, and nothing was going to stop me.

The music started playing the moment I walked in, and my radar immediately flashed the direction of an enemy. It was a Psion, which wasn't even a contest. There was a dull blem type sound as the shotgun went off in my hands, and the Psion's head disappeared. Blood, skull fragments, and brain matter splattered the wall behind it as the now corpse collapsed. Then an alarm started sounding and I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. I spun around, pulling a knife and throwing it in one fluid motion before I'd even recognized that the target was another Psion. It slumped down as well, the knife was buried in its head.

"Well, there goes the stealth approach." I pulled the knife from the Psion and smiled. "Perfect. I was clamoring for a good fight anyway." Zara started laughing. "God, what am I going to do with you." I wiped the knife off with a piece of cloth I had just for this reason, and put it back in its loop before clearing the rest of the building.

As expected, there was no one else in the building, but when I peeked through a window, I could see several Legionaries and Phalanx's running towards the edge of the outpost, along with the Colossus's. I also saw my other priority target. The Centurion in charge of the outpost was moving into a much larger building across the courtyard. "Should we kill him first? Or after we take care of them." I motioned towards the group of enemies that was simultaneously growing in size and spreading out to try and find what set the alarm off. "Centurion. Cut the head from the snake."

The door closed after him, and once it did, I ran across the courtyard, vaulting over an interceptor that I hadn't noticed before and siding to a stop before the door. It didn't open for me, so I decided to open it myself. I'd packed thermite charges for this type of stuff. Fallen had a habit of locking doors behind them. After the first time that happened, I resolved to just blow open doors that the enemy locked. There were a few exceptions where I would let Zara open doors. Mostly when I thought there might be something important on the other side.

It didn't take me long to set the charges. They ignited with a blinding flash that left me seeing a black line to my right. It would fade in a few minutes, but it wouldn't affect me for now. After 45 seconds, the flames stopped and the actual charges detonated, causing the door to fly in. There was the Centurion, along with several Phalanx's and Psion's. Based on their body language, I'd caught them with their metaphorical pants down.

I didn't give them a chance to pull those metaphorical pants up. My shotgun started barking at a fearful rate. By the time my magazine was empty, all of the Psion's were dead, which left a quartet of Phalanx's and the Centurion. The Phalanx's for their part, formed a shield wall before the Centurion and started taking potshots at me from around their shields. I stepped around a corner and pulled a grenade from a loop on my belt. Then spun back around and rolled it through a gap at the bottom of the shield wall before launching myself back around the corner.

There was a thump and the sound of fragments embedding themselves in the walls. I dropped the drum magazine from my gun and caught it transmat out as I slammed a new one home. When I went back around the corner, I could see that two of the Phalanx's were down, while the other two were using their shields to help stand. My shotgun barked four times, and the Phalanx's fell down and were dead. Their chests blown open and heads blown apart.

It was just the Centurion and I now. Our guns snapped onto each other at the same time, but neither of us fired. Then, he spoke. "You… are different than your brethren. You do not throw yourself straight into battle." His voice was low and rumbling. I didn't respond. I just aimed center of mass and held down the trigger. His gun barked thrice. Mine, 26 times. Then, it was silent again. His shots had gone wide. Mine hadn't.

I slowly walked up to the now corpse. His chest was blown clear through and a pool of blood was quickly spreading. "Shame, if he was a guardian we probably would've gotten along." I reached down a pulled his helmet off and grabbed his gun. After a moment Zara understood what I wanted and transmatted both of them away.

As I walked towards the door, I noticed that there was a large pool of blood where the door impacted the wall, along with what appeared to be the limbs of a Psion poking out from the sides. I chuckled for a minute as I swapped magazines. "Oh what a way to die." When I peeked out around the hole, I could see enemies running towards the building I was in and a few shots flew towards the building. "Zara, stream this straight to Cayde's inbox." "Oh no. I don't like the sound of that." "You're not supposed too. It means that I'm about to have fun."

I pulled several grenades and threw them around the corner, then did it again with smoke grenades. The voice in the back of my mind spoke to me for the first time since Arizona. "Trust in me and we'll make it through this." I didn't pay much attention to it though and just sprinted for the smoke that had filled the courtyard. Everything was white, but there were very faint shadows that grew in number the farther I moved in. "Left" The voice was calm but firm, so I shifted a foot to the left and a few shots whizzed past me. After that, I stopped consciously listening to the voice.

I could see a shape ahead of me, probably a legionary. As I got closer, I used it as a springboard to launch myself into the air, firing a shot into its head as I went. I slung my shotgun over my shoulder and started throwing knives at any enemy shaped shapes I could see and using living ones as springboards to stay in the air for as long as I could.

By the time I ran out of "springboards", the smoke was clearing away to show that only the Colossus's and I were standing. Everything else was dead or on the ground and dying. I could feel time slowing around me as the barrels of their Gatling guns started spinning. I only had 4 knives, and a shotgun with a full magazine. Sounds like a fair fight. I started sprinting around to the right, trying to get behind them. But I stopped midway once they were in a line and ran straight at them, launching myself at the last second so that I landed on their gun, face to face with them.

"Nice gun you have there." I just received a grunt in response and smirked. "I think I'll keep it." My shotgun barked twice at point blank. Blowing his arms off at the elbows and causing blood and gel to start spraying out. A trio of shots aimed at his head blew that away as well and caused the now corpse to fall backwards and send me rolling towards the other one.

He stomped which caused me to stop rolling. But the damage had already been done. There were a half dozen armed grenades sitting at his feet. They detonated in a flash of thunder and shrapnel. But when the smoke cleared, he was still alive. His armor had taken the brunt of the impact and warped, but he was still standing and began to fire. Like before I listened to that voice, dodging shots and small missiles, working to get closer only to be launched a few feet backwards each time. Two steps forward, one step back.

Eventually I decided it was better to get some distance than continue getting closer. So I dropped another pair of smoke grenades and sprinted off in a direction that would minimize my silhouette if it could somehow see me. The occasional shot would whip past me, but most were far behind. I dove into a building and rolled around a corner. Zara knew what I was planning and switched my shotgun for the sniper. I worked the action to chamber an AP round and rolled back out into the doorway, deploying the bipod as I rolled.

The moment I could see it. I fired and worked the action until all 10 rounds were fired. Even then I dropped it, slammed a new one in, and repeated. Only stopping after 3 magazines when I was sure it was dead. I could see even from where I was that the corpse was riddled with holes which were leaking blood and black gel. I replaced the sniper with my modular rifle and went around putting a bullet in the head of each cabal that was still alive somehow and collecting my knives from the ones they were in.

I walked over to the Gatling gun and watched as Zara transmatted it out. I would have fun breaking that down later. After that, we went to the armory and Zara just floated over my shoulder watching as I rooted through everything and found stuff that I wanted. There were a lot of explosives, including land mines. I would have a lot of fun with those in particular. While I went to work on those, Zara went off to snag any and all information from their servers, because who doesn't like information.


End file.
